


Consequence

by heartstrickledown



Category: Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-08
Updated: 2010-07-08
Packaged: 2017-10-10 11:15:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/99141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartstrickledown/pseuds/heartstrickledown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Roche. Rorschach is followed by a dog.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Consequence

  
  
  
  
  


**Entry tags:**

|   
---|---  
  
Rorschach, disguised as Walter Kovacs, sat on a bench _without_ a sigh and set his sign between his feet. Pigeons knew better than to beg for scraps from him, but still some landed around him, cooing and tilting their heads at jaunty angles, daring him to deny them breadcrumbs.

"Go away," he commanded. As per usual, they continued to meander about. Walter nodded solemnly at their stubbornness and pulled out a moldy fistful of bread. Sometimes, New York deserved a reward for her fierce will. Only sometimes.

*

He spotted the dog out of the corner of his eye and did not make a show of it. No reason to. After all, it was just a stray dog - could be _any_ dog - and the pigeons were crowding around his shoes and wailing at him.

Walter knew that dogs were perhaps the only inherently good things on this earth.

Rorschach knew that good dogs were easy to kill.

He wasn't concerned.

*

When the dog slunk up to him, ears low, tail deferential, Walter knew exactly what it was and why it was there.

"You're here," he said, fists clenching around the base of his sign. He refused to look the dog in the eyes. The dog whined and edged closer. A woman jogged by them and Walter did not move to speak or touch the dog, watching her with narrowed eyes as she made the pigeons scatter. Once she'd passed, he let himself focus on the dog. "Over, now," he told it. "No use coming to me."

The dog barked.

Walter curled his lip, body gone rigid with subtle shock. "_What?_" he hissed. "Have nothing to offer you. No penance to pay." The dog nudged his wrist with a nose and made a low sound that was almost a growl. "Did nothing _wrong,_" he continued, "only did what had to be done. Go away."

When the dog only licked his wrist and whined, Walter stood.

"Go away," he repeated.

He was not surprised when the dog followed him.

*

It followed him to the door of the Gunga Diner, whimpering and growling at him, and when the door snapped shut it trotted across the street, plunked down next to his mail drop, and began to howl.

Walter spilled his coffee over his hands and couldn't bring himself to finish it.

*

"I understand that I have no control in this," he grumbled, doing his best to not swing the sign into the dog's face, "but would prefer if you shut your mouth." The dog yipped and sank its teeth into his coat. "Stop it." The dog pulled, growling, backing ineffectually towards an alleyway. "_Stop_ it." He took a moment to meet the stare of a young businessman walking by, careful not to glare and doubly careful not to break the gaze.

Thankfully, the dog chose that moment to release his coat - unfortunately, it also chose that moment to start _barking_ again, loud, angry barks that made it difficult to not kick the beast in the jaw.

"Shut up," he whispered, shivering all over. "Don't owe you _anything._"

But it didn't stop barking. The sound followed him down six city blocks and further, still, and when he ducked into an alleyway and covered his ears it made no difference.

*

That night, Rorschach wondered for the first time when he last patrolled with Daniel. It'd been two months, easily, and Rorschach couldn't remember how long Daniel attended the bird convention - or whatever it was. It could've been near four months since he'd last seen the other man.

He didn't need a partner and he wasn't going because of the dog. It was simply that Daniel could probably use Rorschach's help on patrol.

*

Daniel wasn't home.

The dog, however, was sitting on Daniel's doorstep, whining through the door from the moment Rorschach stepped into the kitchen. He voted to ignore the thing, unwilling to waste time with an animal when Daniel was so evidently in need of assistance. Rorschach stalked through the house, flipping on every light and opening even the closets, hunting him.

The costume was still downstairs.

The only natural conclusion, then, was that Daniel was visiting with Hollis tonight. Not a problem. Rorschach could wait.

*

Rorschach foraged through Daniel's fridge, ignoring what had evolved from whining to full-out barking and long, heavy scratches. He had a knife in a mustard jar, halfway finished making a ham sandwich, when he finally snapped.

"_Fine!_" Throwing open the door, Rorschach pointed the dripping butter knife at the dog. "Come _in,_ but stay away." For a long moment, the dog and Rorschach glared at each other; without waiting for Rorschach to move, the dog brushed past him and sat facing him. Growling under his breath, Rorschach slammed the door shut hard enough to rattle the glass. "Better hope Daniel likes dogs," he warned it, indiscriminately dropping lobs of mustard onto the sandwich. "Hehn. Better hope no priests are committing crimes, for that matter."

The dog sidled over to the cabinet and propped its feet up, looking up at Rorschach. If there was urgency there, Rorschach ignored it, shoving the dog's paws off the countertop. "Down," he snapped. At first the dog bared its teeth at him, ears swiveling back - but a dim spark of intelligence lifted its ears and the dog laid down, watching Rorschach.

Rorschach sat in a chair and frowned at the sandwich. It'd been four days since he had a proper meal, but the eager brown eyes of the dog drained him of his appetite. "Not getting any," he informed the dog. With that, he took as large a bite as he could, just to spite the thing. The dog whimpered. Rorschach almost choked.

*

Two hours and thirty minutes later, Rorschach paced from living room to kitchen to basement, tailed by a dog that just wouldn't sit _still_ and keep _quiet_. It insisted on whimpering and pawing at things and reminding him with every flick of its ears and lift of its tail of a little girl and a warm shock of blood and the smell of smoke and.

And the dog whined.

"Fred, is that who you are?" Rorschach asked, going very still. Under the kitchen's florescent lights it looked so solid despite the haze of memory. "Barney? Or maybe Roche? Hn?" He could feel the cleaver in his hand. "There's nothing to give," he whispered. "Can't you understand?"

The dog nuzzled his hand, ears flat.

Rorschach could not hurt the dog, even if he wanted to, and there was nothing left inside to shatter - so he broke instead what he could.

He didn't think of Daniel once.

*

Three hours later, Rorschach was tearing through Daniel's house, yelling until his voice was hoarse.

"Where _are_ you? Where did you _go?!_"

  
Three hours later, the dog laid shuddering under Daniel's bed, vision blurred, head throbbing where a chair nicked him.

*

An animal howled.

*

Rorschach did not see the dog again.

*

A week later, Dan Dreiberg came home to everything outside of his basement wrecked, brownstone inhabited only by a man in a trench coat.

He knelt and touched his wrist.  


_   
_


End file.
